9 – 11 July

Who is Lulu? In Frank Wedekind’s late nineteenth century double drama, now referred to as his ‘Lulu’ plays, in Earth Spirit (the first part), Lulu is equated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, ‘created for every abuse, to allure and to poison and seduce’. But in Angela Carter’s 1970’s rewrite we meet a more tangible human being – ‘a tiny plump, fluffy big-eyed blonde, sports lavish furs, very high heels and a chic little hat, all of which she wears with a delightful wit, as if she saw the funny side of her own attractiveness.’ 

The graduating students from the Bristol School of Acting (BSA), the UK’s newest drama school, have fearlessly turned this demanding two and a half-hour piece into a vivid commentary on attitudes, both male and female, to the expression of sexual desire.

Lulu the vamp, or Lulu the victim? The interesting dimension to Carter’s adaptation is that she can be both at the same time. While she might enjoy playing the seductress, underneath there is always the sense that she is not entirely in control of her destiny and remains ‘tragic, driven and doomed.’

The work is by turns exploitative, funny, but ultimately harrowing. BSA proved themselves absolutely capable of meeting the challenges with a performance that could be both hard-edged yet witty, sometimes almost unworldly. Aided by Angelica Rush’s draped back-clothed stage and riveting costumes, with rouged lighting by KJ, the atmosphere on stage was enhanced by Joseff Harris’s soundscape – at times pulsing with musical beats, at others with more ethereal synthed waves adding tension.

With a cast of 21 to employ, director Natalie Simone has come up with a novel way to present the role of Lulu, not with one actor, but with seven, who follow Lulu’s trajectory from impoverished flower girl to wife and muse to establishment figures, before her plunge into jeopardy and doom at the hands of Jack The Ripper. This placed a high demand on the audience as one Lulu segued to the next. But the sheer confidence of the players kept everyone onboard.

At the beginning, the seven ‘Lulu’s marched out to confront the audience. There was something undeniably doll-like, puppet-like about their movements which were performed in unison. It was a clever device that both introduced us to the iterations of Lulu we were to  meet as her relationships changed over the course of her short life, and to the idea that she was toy-like, a being to be played with.

When reviewing student work, it feels unjust not to mention all cast members when there has been such a successful collective effort. All seven Lulus, Clementine Macfarlane, Eleanor Butler, Madeleine Chambers, Melissa Hawa Mensa, Salomé Haertel, Solena Rodgriguez, Talia-Jade Jones, shone in their own very dramatically different ways.  While the main male protagonists, Samuel Hunter-Nicholls as the conflicted Schoen, Daniel Martindale as would-be lover Alva, Fin Latcham as the sexually repressed artist Schwartz, casual lover Rodrigo (Tom Eros) and impossibly uptight husband (Jamie Whitelaw) all served to reveal the self-centeredness of the male gaze, descending at times into fetishism, at the expense of potential joy with a woman happy to express herself sexually.

Instead, all the men implode and are destroyed by their own insecurities. As Alva exclaims: “Now I know why I am ruined. There’s danger oozing out of every pore of her. She’s like a pirate ship; she’s come to wreck the bourgeoisie with the terrible weapon of her sex,” never for a moment questioning, as with the others, his own attitudes.

Without as much as dancing on their graves, Lulu, by necessity, has to move on quickly, and her looks and manner elicit a revolving door of new partners. The only selfless act of love in return comes from the lesbian, Countess Geschwitz (Kate Goodman), who makes a simple plea for happiness, but finds herself rejected despite springing the heroine from jail.  

Schwartz’s painting of Lulu as a Pierrot character features in most scenes, acting as a kind of reverse Portrait of Dorian Gray scenario – the picture remaining youthful, while the subject dilapidates with her changing fortunes. When it comes to the very end, BSA deliver with devastating bluntness. The Ripper rips. The male world has finally snuffed out a beautiful female life.

★★★★☆ Simon Bishop, 10 July 2026